Retail Forum for Sustainability

Tuesday 26 June 2018, Brussels

Retail Forum for Sustainability

Plastics at a tipping point – what’s the role for retailers?

We are delighted to invite you the Retail Forum for Sustainability event: “Plastics at a tipping point – what’s the role for retailers”, taking place on Tuesday 26th June at the Renaissance Hotel in Brussels and kindly co-hosted by the European Retail Round Table, EuroCommerce and the European Commission.

In a recent move to curb plastic waste, the EU has come forward with its proposal to tackle single use plastic and has launched an effort to ensure that all packaging throughout Europe is reusable or recyclable by the year 2030 and has launched a plastics strategy that involves a €350m investment in plastics research. The move to reduce single-use plastics has become a worldwide initiative, with nearly 200 countries signing a United Nations resolution to eliminate plastic pollution in the ocean, the Canadian presidency of the forthcoming G7 Summit working on a G7 plastic charter, possibly to be subsequently adopted by G20 and the OECD report on Improving Market for Recycled plastics. Timings are aligned for a worldwide pressure to move the bar higher and higher on plastic.

Progressive retailers’ direct relationship with consumers, along their innovative efforts in contributing to the establishment of a Circular Economy and a new plastics strategy are key drivers in this process. Join this high-level event gathering experts from business, civil society, the EU institutions and the signatories of the Retailers’ Environmental Action Programme (REAP) to discuss how retailers can contribute to addressing these challenges within a new vision for plastics in Europe.

Thierry Lucas, Head of the Brussels’ office, United Nations Environment Programme

Virginia Janssens, Managing Director, EUROPEN

Juliet Phillips, Ocean Campaigner, Rethink Plastics Alliance

Andreas Mäurer, Head of Department of Process Development for Polymer Recycling, Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging IVV

Leonor Garcia, Director Public Affairs, PlasticsEurope

REAP, the Retailers’ Environmental Action Programme, is the means by which innovative retailers demonstrate the important contribution they can make to sustainability and to society as a whole by setting the example. Having run for two previous successful mandates, the current mandate is focused on the positive role retailers have in the transition towards a circular economy and is currently composed of over 170 publicly accessible commitments. Signatories to REAP participate in the Retail Forum for Sustainability with a view to taking the Circular Economy agenda forward.

More information about both REAP and the Retail Forum for Sustainability can be found here.